College of Arts - Briefing Paper

The following information identifies key points that are of concern to AUS members. These may assist members who wish to make a submission on the College of Arts Change Proposal.

Association of University Staff – Briefing paper

University of Canterbury – College of Arts

• On 23 January 2008, the University of Canterbury released for consultation a Change Proposal for its College of Arts.
• The proposal states as the imperatives for change the need to modernise the BA degree, giving greater choices to students and to reducing spending/increasing income by $2.5 million by 2009.
• The Change Proposal recommends that the College reduce from eleven to eight schools, closes two programmes, namely American Studies and Theatre and Film Studies, reduces staff numbers by 21.5 equivalent full-time positions and proposes that student to staff ratios be increased.
• A Review Panel has been established to hear submissions, which close on 14 March. The Panel will make final recommendations which in turn will be subject to the approval of the Vice-Chancellor.
• An Arts Future Project, from which the Change Proposal evolved, has been under development by University management for a period of sixteen months.
• The Association of University Staff and other members of the University community will make submissions to the review. Legal implications of the proposal are also being examined by AUS.

American Studies

• This is the only free-standing American Studies programme in New Zealand. It has 7.5 academic staff and one administrator.
• In 2007, there were 149 equivalent full-time students. Staff teach into other programmes, including English, Gender Studies and Cultural Studies, and currently supervise eight PhD students and four MA students.
• The programme provides its students with the critical thinking skills both relevant and necessary to negotiate a world in which the effects of US unilateralism and cultural hegemony are inescapable.
• Academic staff members have received teaching awards and routinely received among the highest student teaching evaluations in the University. They have also brought in over one million dollars in external research income and have the potential to bring in more if they are able to proceed with the establishment of a research centre in American Studies, which has been under development.
• The effect of closure will remove the opportunity to establish an affiliation with the new and growing Spanish programme and develop a major in Comparative American Studies.
• It will also halt an initiative to establish linkages with US universities and colleges that will bring American students to the University of Canterbury as part of their study abroad programmes and have them study an American Studies course in which they would learn how their country is perceived overseas while contributing their insider knowledge to NZ students;
• Academic staff have been involved in international efforts to globalize the field of American Studies. Such internationalisation of American Studies is predicated on an acknowledgment of the value of critical analyses of US culture, society and politics conducted from outside the US’s own borders. International practitioners of American Studies serve to protect the discipline from its historic tendency within the US toward parochialism.
• Canterbury’s programme constitutes a vital component in this international endeavour and ensures that a New Zealand perspective is part of the ongoing debate.

Theatre and Film Studies

• The Department of Theatre & Film Studies is recognised nationally and internationally for the way it integrates theory and practice, and works between theatre and film, at all levels, from stage one to PhD. The four academic and three general staff work together with students as artists and scholars, producing essays and books, but also performances and films.
• Its postgraduate programme is especially successful, with nine thesis students currently enrolled.
• Te Puna Toi (Performance Research Project) provides a platform for bicultural projects and contributes to the Department’s high international profile.
• For more than 25 years, the Department’s producing wing, Free Theatre, has made a remarkable contribution to Christchurch’s cultural life.
• Theatre & Film Studies was consistently assured it was meeting the financial targets set for the Centre for Music and Theatre and Film Studies in 2007, and that any cuts would be too small to be significant. Yet a higher target was secretly set for Theatre & Film Studies, without notifying the Department.
• The Department has demonstrated that instead of saving $300,000, the College stands to lose over $200,000 by disestablishment, and that the staff to student ratio in the Change Proposal is wrong. The response from the College management was that this is not purely a financial decision.
• The judgment that Theatre and Film Studies are not “core” disciplines clearly contradicts the standards set by other universities worldwide and the Government’s educational policies.

Internal factors

• The Proposal presents neither a business nor an academic case for the proposed closures.
• The financial rationale is based on estimates of income and expenditure (not actual data), shifting financial targets and an incomplete analysis of the net savings/cost of making staff redundant, discontinuing courses and degrees, and turning away students.
• No academic criteria have been provided; nor have academic processes been engaged in to date.
• The financial rationale does not take into account the costs of the University’s continuing obligation to provide expert supervision, facilities, and resources (including technical support) for thesis students.
• References are made to the University’s “core” programmes upon which recommendations have been made, yet there is no definition of “core” nor are other academic criteria presented.
• The proposal is predicated on a financial model which requires around 42% of College income being returned to the University’s central administration. This figure is arbitrarily determined by senior management without consultation or with those departments having any ability to influence the amount.
• Not taken into account is the long-term effect of increasing student to staff ratios to a level which are in some cases much higher than national averages. This will, in the first instance, result in the non-retention of academic positions when vacated, a crucial loss of expertise and a detrimental effect on providing adequate coverage of the curriculum in the vast majority of programmes in the College.

External factors

• The University proposes to close the American Studies and Theatre and Film Studies programmes in apparent isolation from the Government’s Tertiary Education Strategy and the national interest.
• These programmes have strategic national importance, yet there is no evidence that the University has discussed the proposed closures with the Tertiary Education Commission nor sought funding through the Investment Plan process to maintain the programmes - if indeed there is a question of financial viability.
• The University has taken actions which give rise to the conclusion that the proposed change is a fait accompli. For example, students are being told to “find other Majors”; administrators are having to participate in a job comparison exercise which precedes redeployment; MA students are not being allowed to enrol part-time on the basis that there will not be experts to supervise them after 2008; PhD students enrolling now are being made to sign waivers; and currently enrolled PhD students are being told that they may have to cancel their research if they do not accept whatever substitutes the College gives them after this year. It is also clear that intending undergraduate students are affected by negative publicity and the lack of assurance from the University about continuation of programmes.
• Decisions of this nature should not be the sole domain of vice-chancellors or of management, but subject to widespread community and stakeholder consultation.

Conclusion

• The proposal is based upon flawed data and has been prepared without reference to academic processes.
• The proposal has not been subject to, nor is there a particular process for, broad community consultation.
• The proposal has been prepared in isolation to the Tertiary Education Strategy and the national interest.
• A moratorium should be placed on proposing staff cuts to allow proper consultation and for the Government have the opportunity to be involved in any decision.
• Also, the impact of increasing staff to student ratios is a matter of national concern particularly with regard to the Humanities and Social Sciences and needs to be addressed at a national level.

Further information or facts and figures to support these points are available on request. Please contact:
Maureen Montgomery
National President
Association of University Staff
Phone 0275 841 677
Email maureen.montgomery@canterbury.ac.nz